anikom15

It seems he made a bubble nest today. I think that's a good sign. I think I will keep him in quarantine for two weeks and try reintroducing him again.

Water parameters pH - 7.6 Nitrates - <5 ppm Hardness - 10 dH Nitrite - 0 Ammonia - 0 KH/Buffer - 5 dH Water Temperature - 78 Tank mates (20 gal, moderate planted) 4 male guppies 10 cardinal tetras 4 false julii corydoras I got a honey gourami of the sunset type. The fish store told me they are the same as any other honey gourami but are just orange. He was doing well in quarantine. By the end of quarantine (4 weeks), he was getting 2 flakes per day. I took him out of quarantine and into the main tank a week ago, July 2nd. The first day, the guppies chased him around a bit, but he flexed back and they backed off. The other fish now seem to ignore him. I don't think the tetras are nipping him at all. An unfortunate variable was that in the middle of quarantine I was out of town, and I'm not sure if the lady watching the fish remembered to feed him (he's on a different floor from the main tank). Yesterday morning he was hanging out at the bottom and being lethargic. I fed the tank and he made his way to the top. He's not at all aggressive about getting food and I fear he may not have been getting enough. I decided to target feed him with extra food and I was able to get him to eat until he stopped seeming interested. The tetras joined him and some of them are quite fat now, but I digress. The rest of the day he would rest on the floor a bit, go to various corners of the tank and hang out, and then go back to the floor. He seemed stress but not in particular trouble. It looks like he has lost a bit of his dorsal fin, and he seems skinny. The next morning (today), he seemed to be in worse condition, barely moving on the bottom of the floor. He came to eat a bit, but ate less than yesterday even when I tried to target feed him. After breakfast he hung out near the sponge filter (tank has HOB+sponge) in an almost vertical position (nose up). If any other fish came near he would move to another area and continue resting. I decided to quarantine him again. I put him in a small holding tank with a floating plant and two flakes of food while I setup the holding tank and did a water change on the main tank. The water change went well and all the other fish are acting normal. The quarantine tank was setup with completely fresh water and prime but uses the same sponge filter that was in the main tank (I have no other filter). This along with the single floater should instantly cycle the tank. Before putting the fish in, I noticed the two flakes were consumed and he was active. I put him in the QT tank and he seems to be fine. I have three theories. One is that he is normal and just acting weird, but my gut and experience tell me otherwise. I'm new to gouramis, but my understanding was that they like to be near the top of the tank. The other is that he hasn't been eating enough, is weak, and will starve without careful feeding. The last is that there is a bacteria in the main tank that the other fish are immune to. However, the last one seems unlikely because the original QT tank used partial water and sponge filter from the main tank, which would've brought any endemic bacteria with it.

This green stuff has been growing in and on my sand for a few months. It seems to be photosynthetic because it only goes as deep as the light will penetrate. Is it cyanobacteria?

Today is day five of ParaCleanse treatment so I did a 25% water change, replaced polishing floss into the filter, converted the airstone into an airstone+sponge (to have a QT filter on hand when needed) and turned the UV sterilizer back on. I will keep the sterilizer on 8 hours per day for a week to prevent green water, and then decommission it. Before the water change, one of the cories had a partially clamped fin and wasn’t moving much, but after acclimating to the new water and feeding, he is moving again. It seems like the males are more sensitive to whatever is happening in the tank than the females. I’ll do another water change on Wednesday. Two things have begun happening recently: The tank has developed an earthy smell (cyanobacteria?) The plants and walls are starting to get hair algae. I assume these had an opportunity to growth with the gap in green water, but these two algae types at least still allow me to see my fish. Another weird issue is that this tank develops foam on the edges of the water. The foam never builds up, but it’s there. I never test positive for ammonia, so I’m at a loss for what it could be. Whenever I water change, the foam disappears for a bit, but builds up again in a couple days. I’ll post another update on the water change Wednesday.

The airstone is a recent addition and the fish already seem to prefer having it. I originally didn’t put one in because of the noise, but I’m getting one of those mini air pumps and hopefully it will be quiet enough to not bother me. The actual bubble noise doesn’t bother me, just the vibrations of the pump. I’ll ditch the wondershell and see how the GH/KH/pH settles with straight tap.

The third corydoras died this afternoon. I think I got him out of the tank pretty fresh. The other fish are still acting normal.

About every two weeks.

Recently I’ve been doing a 25% change per week. I did a WC just before dosing ParaCleanse.

Here are some pictures I just took. The first two is the sick fish. The last is one of the healthy ones.

I have a planted 20 gallon that originally had six male guppies (in hindsight this was a mistake; they bicker often), nine fales julii corydoras, a nerite snail, and many bladder snails. The tank developed a green water problem which made it near impossible to observe the fish, so I got a UV sterilizer and it cleared up. I continued to run the UV sterilizer when one cory, who was the smallest and never really thrived in the tank, developed a swim bladder issue and continually slept on his side. Eventually he passed away from what I assume was starvation, as he had a dimple under his belly. He had no other visible symptoms. A few days before, however, a guppy died suddenly. There were no visible symptoms and he was acting normally the day before he died. He was also the smallest. I wrote off these two deaths as 'runt' deaths (and possibly old age for the guppy, as I've had him for a few months). The day he died I put the UV sterilizer on a timer as I no longer needed it to run 24 hours with the green water gone. A couple days after the first cory finally died, a second cory got sick. She developed a bit of extra mucus on her coat, and would keep her fins clamped. The day before she died she would shimmer, but didn't have swim bladder issues. The day she died (yesterday) she began turning over and her dorsal fin deteriorated quickly. She also had some very small red blotches on her front, and the characteristic stomach dimple from lack of eating. The day before the second cory died, another cory developed a 'corkscrew' tick, but after I changed the water (25%) she was fine. The day after, a completely different male cory appears to have a swim bladder issue, again sleeping on its side. As before, there are no visible signs of illness. He doesn't even breathe rapidly. I'm at a loss at what the problem could be, but since this is likely going to be the fourth death of the tank, I need to try to figure this out. Right now I have Ich-X and ParaCleanse. I ordered Maracyn 1 and 2 but it will take a while to get. Yesterday I treated the tank with ParaCleanse, as parasites are my prime suspect. I assume that the red blotches were a secondary bacterial infection due to stress from the parasites or injury. Right now, the cory that developed the swim bladder issue is alive but on its side and will likely die. The other cories are resting. They don't seem stressed, but they also don't seem themselves. They have energy, as when they do decide to move, they move quickly, and do their normal foraging thing. My assumption is that they are bothered or cautious about the medicine that was added to the tank, and perhaps because of the new flow from an air stone I added when I started the ParaCleanse. I also didn't feed them today. The UV sterilizer is off (but still in the tank) so as to not interfere with the ParaCleanse. I never did quarantine tanks before, but I think I will be doing that going forward... Water parameters (taken this morning): 20 gallon pH - 7.6+ (API pH test, I ordered the High Range pH test, but it could be as high as 8.0 according to my tap water reports) Nitrates - (0, floaters keep it at 0 constantly) Hardness - ~300 ppm (according to test strip, but I orderd the GH/KH API test for better test; tap water reads 0 GH so I use wonder shells to raise this) Nitrite - 0 Ammonia - 0 KH/Buffer - ~40 ppm (test strip, tap water is very high KH. Something caused the KH to drop quickly since the green water went away) Water Temperature - 75 Sand substrate HOB filter + airstone I recently read that cories don't like high pH water. I didn't know the water was so high in pH until I used the API test kit (never use Amazon off-brand test strips!), but I also read that they don't like high GH water. There is a lot of contradicting information about this. If the wonder shell is bothering them, I'm wondering if aragonite or crushed coral will be able to provide calcium without as strongly affecting GH as the wonder shell. Summary: Corydoras died from swim bladder and starvation, a second is dying this way A different corydoras died after shimmying, red blotches, and fin rot. A guppy died for seemingly no reason Guppies are acting normal; cories are cautious, but retain energy